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California Puts Ban on Use of Microbeads

Submitted by Andrea Cordell on Sun, 05/24/2015 - 01:32

The California Assembly recently approved a bill to ban the use of microbeads. After passing of this bill California would be the first state to ban these tiny environment threats in cosmetic products.

There are higher possibilities that the bill will pass the State Senate as well, becoming enforceable shortly after.

Microbeads are small plastic balls that are used in product like scrubs and cleansers that facilitate the exfoliating properties of these products.

The problem with these tiny plastic balls is that when you wash the cleanser from face, the microbeads go down the drain with it and make their way into the environment.

As per experts these plastic balls are extremely small, with a diameter of less than 0.03 inches usually.

These plastic spheres are so minute that they manage to make their way through the filters of the wastewater treatment plants and thus end up in the oceans or rivers.

Environmentalists have looked into the matter and have calculated that up to 38 tons of plastic goes into the waters in the form of the tiny microbeads every year.

Mark Murray, leader of Californians Against Waste pointed out that it is very important that serious measures should be taken to resolve the matter of microbeads.

He further said that no company would ever get away with unloading almost 40 tons of toxic waste in the waters, because they would be gravely violating the Clear Water Act.

He said, “But these cosmetic and soap makers are doing the same thing on a daily basis with billions of plastic microbeads washed down millions of drains. Enough is enough”.

Murray said that once these microbeads get into water fish mistake them for eggs and ingest them and therefore also ingest all the chemicals that come with them, which is extremely harmful.